The Chinese LakeMurders

by Robert Van Gulik

  On the second floor it was pitch dark. Tao Gan felt along the cobweb-covered plaster wall till he found the door. He pushed it open and remained standing there surveying the dimly lighted, low-ceilinged room. Two men were sitting at a round table with a depression in the center for throwing dice. One was a fat man with a heavy jowled, expressionless face and a closely shaved head. He was the manager of the gambling den. The other was a thin fellow with a pronounced squint. Men with this defect are in great demand as supervisors of gambling games because persons who cheat never know whether they are being watched or not.

  "It's brother Tao," the fat man said without much enthusiasm. "Don't stand hanging about there. Come inside! It's too early for a game, but there'll be people in soon."

  "No," Tao Gan said. "I am rather in a hurry. I only looked in to see whether the carpenter Mao Yuan is here. I want to collect some money he owes me."

  The two men laughted heartily.

  "In that case," the fat manager sniggered, "you'll have to go a long way, brother! All the way to the King of the Nether World! Don't you know that old Mao is dead?"

  Tao Gan swore volubly. He sat down in a rickety bamboo chair.

  "That would be my cursed luck!" he said angrily. "Just when I need the money! What happened to the bastard?"

  "It's all over the town," the man with the squint remarked. "He was found in the Buddhist Temple with a hole in his head you could put your fist in!"

  "Who did it?" asked Tao Gan. "I might approach that fellow and blackmail him into paying me the money, with a bit extra for good luck!"

  The fat man nudged his neighbor. Both started laughing again.

  "What's the joke now?" Tao Gan asked sourly.

  "The joke is, my friend," the manager explained, "that Mao Loo is probably mixed up in that murder. Now you travel to Three Oaks Island, brother Tao, and blackmail the fellow!"

  The man with the squint bellowed with laughter.

  "You have him again, boss!" he exclaimed, guffawing.

  "What nonsense!' Tao Gan exclaimed. "Mao Loo is the carpenter's own cousin!"

  The fat man spat on the floor.

  "Listen, brother Tao," he said, "listen carefully; then perhaps even you will understand! Three days ago Mao Yuan comes in here late in the afternoon. He has just finished a job and there's money in his sleeve. He finds a good crowd here; the fellow has luck, he wins a nice bit of money. Then who should come in but his cousin. Now Mao Yuan hasn't been too keen on that cousin of his lately, but what with the wine in his belly and the money in his sleeve he greets him like a long-lost brother. They drink four jars of the best together; then Mao Loo invites his cousin to have a meal with him somewhere outside. And that is the last we see of them. Mind you now, I don't say anything against Mao Loo. I just state the facts!"

  Tao Gan nodded comprehendingly.

  "That's bad luck!" he said ruefully. "Well, I'd better be on my way."

  Just as he was rising the door opened and a powerfully built man clad in a ragged monk's robe came in. Tao Gan hurriedly sat down again.

  "Ha, there's the monk!" the manager exclaimed.

  The man thus addressed sat down with a grunt. The manager pushed a teacup toward him. The monk spat on the floor.

  "Have you nothing better to serve than that filthy stuff?" he asked gruffly.

  The fat man lifted his right hand, making a circle with the thumb and forefinger.

  The monk shook his head.

  "Nothing doing!" he said disgustedly. "Wait till I have beaten that mealy youth to pulp; then I'll show you some real money!"

  The manager shrugged his shoulders. He said indifferently:

  "Then it'll have to be tea, monk!"

  "I think I have met you once," Tao Gan said, joining the conversation. "Didn't I see you in front of the Buddhist Temple?"

  The newcomer shot him a suspicious look.

  "Who's the scarecrow?" he asked the manager.

  "Oh, that's Brother Tao," the manager replied. "A good fellow, but not too bright. What did you do in the temple? Do you really think of joining the clergy now, monk?"

  The man with the squint laughed loudly. The monk barked at him: "Stop your stupid sniggering!" As the manager gave him a sour look he went on in a calmer voice: "Well, I am in a foul temper and I don't care who knows it. The day before yesterday I see that fellow Mao Loo behind… where was it now? Yes, it was somewhere near the fish market. You could see the coppers weighing in his sleeves! 'Where's the Treasure Tree, brother?' I ask, friendly like. 'There's plenty more where that came from!' says he. 'You just go and have a look at the Buddhist Temple!' Well, I went there."

  The monk gulped the tea down. Making a face, he continued:

  "And what do you think I find there? An old dodderer who has even less than me, and a coffin!"

  The fat manager burst out laughing. The monk's eyes glittered with rage, but he didn't dare to curse him.

  "Well, well," the manager said, "you better go then with Brother Tao here to Three Oaks Island! He also wants to talk with Mao Loo!"

  "So he got you too, hey?" the monk asked a little more cheerfully.

  Tao Gan grunted his assent.

  "I am all for milking that young fellow you were talking about," he said dryly. "That should be a little easier than tackling Mao Loo!"

  "That's what you think, brother!" the monk said disgustedly. "I meet that youngster in the deep of night, running as if the King of Hell was on his heels. I grab him by his neck and ask him where he's running to. He says: 'Leave me alone!' I see that he's a wealthy youngster, the weak-kneed type that eats with silver chopsticks. I know the fellow has done something he shouldn't. So I pat him on the head, sling him over my shoulder and carry him all the way to my place."

  The monk cleared his throat noisily and spat in the corner. He groped for the teapot, then thought better of it and went on:

  "Imagine the fellow refusing to tell me a tiling! And that after all the trouble I took for him! Now here I am with a fine blackmail case in the hollow of my hand, and the fellow won't talk! And not for lack of persuasion either!" he added with a cruel grin.

  Tao Gan got up.

  "Well," he said with a resigned sigh, "that's how it always is with us people, monk! Nothing but bad luck! If I were a strong fellow like you I could make thirty silver pieces tonight. Anyway, good luck!"

  He went to the door.

  "Hey!" the monk shouted, "why the hurry? Thirty silver pieces did you say?"

  "None of your business!" Tao Gan snapped and opened the door.

  The monk jumped up and dragged him back by his collar.

  "Keep your hands off, monk!" the manager said sharply. And to Tao Gan: "Why be unreasonable, Brother Tao? If you can't do the job yourself, why don't you let the monk here in on it and pocket a commission?"

  "Of course, I had thought of that!" Tao Gan said testily. "But you know I am new here and I didn't quite catch the name of the place where they gather. Since they said they needed a hefty fellow who could fight I didn't inquire further."

  "The stupid son of a dog!" the monk exclaimed. "Thirty silver pieces! Think, bastard!"

  Tao Gan knitted his eyebrows. Then he shrugged. "It's no use. I only remember something about a carp or so!"

  "That's the Inn of the Red Carp!" the manager and the monk exclaimed at the same time.

  "There you have it!" Tao Gan said. "But I don't know where it is."

  The monk rose and took Tao Gan by his arm.

  "Come along, brother!" he said. "I know that place!"

  Tao Gan shook himself loose. He held up his hand, with the palm upward.

  "Five per cent of my share!" the monk said gruffly.

  Tao Gan made for the door.

  "Fifteen or nothing!" he said over his shoulder.

  "Seven for you and three for me!" the manager interrupted. "So that's settled now. You take the monk there, Brother Tao, and tell them that I personally guarantee that the monk knows his job! Get going!"

  T
ao Gan and the monk left the room together.

  They went to the poor quarter east of the fish market. As the monk led Tao Gan into a smelly, narrow side street, he pointed to the door of a ramshackle wooden shed.

  "You go in first!" he whispered hoarsely.

  Tao Gan opened the door. He heaved a sigh of relief. Ma Joong was still there, sitting in a corner with the head of the beggars. They were the only occupants of the sparsely furnished room.

  "How are you, brother!" Tao Gan said cordially to Ma Joong. "Here's exactly the man your boss was looking for!"

  The monk bowed with an ingratiating grin.

  Ma Joong rose and walked up to him. Looking him up and down, he asked:

  "What would the boss be wanting this ugly dog's-head for?"

  "He knows too much about the murder in the Buddhist Temple!" Tao Gan said quickly.

  The monk stepped back, but not fast enough. Before he had raised his hands Ma Joong had landed a straight blow in his heart region that made him fall backward over a small table.

  But the monk had been in such situations before. He didn't attempt to get up. Quick as lightning he drew a knife and threw it at Ma Joong's throat. Ma Joong ducked and the knife stuck in the doorpost with a dull thud. Ma Joong grabbed the small table and crashed it on the monk's half-raised head. It hit the floor. The monk lay motionless.

  Ma Joong unwound the thin chain he carried round his waist. He turned the monk over on his face and secured his hands behind his back. Tao Gan said excitedly:

  "He knows more about Mao Yuan and his cousin than he'll admit, and besides, he is a member of a kidnaping gang!"

  Ma Joong grinned broadly.

  "That's good work!" he said with approval. "But how did you get the rascal here? I thought you didn't know this inn?"

  "Oh," Tao Gan said airily, "I told him a story and he himself took me here."

  Ma Joong gave him a sidelong glance.

  "You look inoffensive enough," he said thoughtfully. "Yet I have a feeling that in your own way you are as nasty a piece as they make them!"

  Ignoring that remark, Tao Gan went on:

  "He has recently kidnaped a young man of good family. Probably the bastard belongs to the same gang that Han Yung-han reported about! Let's make him take us to their hideout; then we'll have something worthwhile to report!"

  Ma Joong nodded. He dragged the unconscious man to his feet and threw him in a chair against the wall. Then he shouted to the graybeard to bring incense sticks. The old man hastily disappeared in the back of the room. He returned with two incense sticks that sent forth a pungent smell.

  Ma Joong jerked the head of the monk up and held the burning sticks, close under his nose. Soon the man started to cough and sneeze violently. He looked up at Ma Joong from bloodshot eyes.

  "We'll have a look at your home, frogface!" Ma Joong said. "Speak up; how do we get there?"

  "You have something coming to you when the manager hears about this!" the monk said thickly. "He'll tear your liver out!"

  "I can look after myself!" Ma Joong said cheerfully. "Come on; answer my question!"

  He held the incense sticks close to the monk's cheek. He looked apprehensively at them, and quickly mumbled some directions. One had to leave the city by a footpath that began somewhere behind the Buddhist Temple.

  "That'll do!" Ma Joong interrupted him. "The rest you'll show us yourself!"

  He told the graybeard to bring an old blanket, and to call two coolies with a stretcher.

  Ma Joong, together with Tao Gan, rolled the monk from head to foot in the blanket. The monk protested that it was very hot. But Tao Gan kicked him in his ribs and said: "Don't you know that you have a fever, bastard?"

  The monk was loaded on the stretcher and they set off. "Be careful!" Ma Joong growled at the coolies. "My friend is very ill!"

  When they had arrived at the pine forest behind the Buddhist Temple, Ma Joong told the coolies to put the stretcher down and paid them off. As soon as they were out of sight, he freed the monk from his blanket. Tao Gan took an oil plaster from his sleeve and pasted that over the monk's mouth.

  "When we are near there you stop and point the place out to us!" he ordered the monk, who scrambled up with difficulty. "Those rascals have special whistles and other warning signals," Tao Gan explained to Ma Joong. Ma Joong nodded. He sent the monk into precipitate action by an accurately placed kick.

  The monk took them along a footpath that led up the mountain. Then he left it and picked his way through the dense forest. He halted and pointed with his head at a cliff that loomed through the trees some distance ahead. Tao Gan ripped the plaster off his mouth. He said nastily:

  "We aren't nature lovers! We want the house!"

  "I have got no house!" the monk said sullenly. "I live in a cave over there."

  "A cave?" Ma Joong shouted angrily. "Do you think you can fool us? Bring us to the headquarters of your gang or I'll throttle you!" And he gripped the monk by his throat.

  "I swear it!" the monk gasped. "The only gang I belong to is the gambling ring! I have been living alone in that cave ever since I came to this accursed place!"

  Ma Joong let him go. He took out the knife the monk had thrown at him. Giving Tao Gan a meaningful look, he asked:

  "Shall we do some pruning on him?"

  Tao Gan shrugged his shoulders.

  "Let's first have a look at that cave, anyway!" he said.

  The monk led them to the cliff, trembling on his legs. He separated the undergrowth with his foot. They saw a dark cleft of about a man's height.

  Tao Gan went down on his belly and crept inside, holding a wicked-looking thin knife between his teeth.

  After a while he reappeared, this time walking upright.

  "There's nobody there but a whimpering youngster!" he announced in a disappointed voice.

  Ma Joong followed him inside, dragging the monk behind him.

  After a dozen steps or so through a dark tunnel he saw a large cave lighted by a crevice in the ceiling. On the right stood a roughly made wooden bed and a battered leather box. On the other side a young man was lying on the floor, wearing only a loincloth. His hands and feet were tied with rope.

  "Let me go! Please, let me go!" he groaned.

  Tao Gan cut his ropes. The young man raised himself with difficulty to a sitting position. They saw that his back was beaten raw.

  "Who has been beating you?" Ma Joong asked gruffly.

  The youngster silently pointed at the monk. As Ma Joong slowly turned round to him the monk fell on his knees.

  "No, Your Excellency, please!" he cried. "The bastard is lying!"

  Ma Joong gave him a contemptuous look. He said coldly:

  "I'll save you for the headman of the constables; he likes that kind of work!"

  Tao Gan had helped the young man to sit down on the bed. He seemed about twenty years old. His head had been crudely shaved, and his face was distorted with pain. But it was easy to see that he was an educated man of good family.

  "Who are you, and how did you get yourself in this state?" Tao Gan asked curiously.

  "That man kidnaped me! Please take me away from him!"

  "We'll do better than that!" Ma Joong said. "We'll take you to His Excellency the Magistrate!"

  "No!" the youngster shouted. "Let me go!"

  He made an attempt to rise.

  "Well, well!" Ma Joong said slowly. "So that's how the land lies! You come along to the tribunal, my young friend!" He barked at the monk: "Hey there! Since you don't even belong to a kidnaping gang I don't care who sees us! You won't be cuddled and carried this time!"

  He lifted the weakly protesting youngster from the bed and placed him with legs astride on the monk's neck. He threw an old blanket over the young man's shoulders. Then he took a bloodstained willow branch from the corner and hit the monk's calves. "Get a move on, dog's-head!" he snapped.

  Fourteenth Chapter

  A YOUNG SCHOLAR TELLS A MOST AMAZING STORY; JUDGE DEE QUESTIONS THE
OWNER OF A BROTHEL

  Late in the morning, shortly before the noon meal, Judge Dee opened a session of the tribunal. The court hall was crowded; the citizens of Han-yuan thought that a session held at such an unusual hour could only mean that important new facts had come to light regarding the two sensational cases that had occurred in their midst.

  To their disappointment, however, the judge began at once with one of the matters he had been studying with Sergeant Hoong and Chiao Tai that morning, namely a quarrel between the fishermen and the management of the fish market regarding the methods of fixing prices. Judge Dee had representatives of both parties explain again their standpoint, then proposed a compromise that, after some discussion, was accepted.

  He was just going to broach a taxation problem when loud shouts were heard outside. Ma Joong and Tao Gan entered, each dragging along a prisoner. They were followed by a dense crowd that had joined them on the way. The spectators stormed them with excited questions; the court hall was in confusion.

  Judge Dee rapped his gavel three times.

  "Silence and order!" he shouted in a thunderous voice. "If I hear one more word I'll have the hall cleared!"

  All fell silent. No one wanted to miss the questioning of the incongruous pair that was now kneeling in front of the dais.

  The judge looked at the prisoners with an impassive face. But inwardly he was far from calm, for he had immediately recognized the young man.

  Ma Joong reported how he and Tao Gan had arrested the two men. Judge Dee listened, slowly stroking his beard. Then he addressed the youngster:

  "State your name and profession!"

  "This insignificant person," he replied in a low voice, "respectfully reports that his name is Djang Hoo-piao, a Candidate of Literature."

  A murmur of astonishment rose from the hall. The judge angrily looked up and rapped his gavel. "This is my last warning!" he shouted. To the youngster he continued: "It was reported to this tribunal that Candidate Djang drowned himself in the lake four days ago!"

  "Your Honor," the young man said in a faltering voice, "it distresses me beyond words that I, in my foolishness, created that wrong impression. I fully realize that I have acted with extreme rashness and showed a most reprehensible lack of decision. I can only hope that Your Honor, having taken cognizance of the special circumstances, will kindly view my case leniently."